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Monday, September 8, 2014

Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corruption

I
posted a link to one of my recent posts
over on the New
Testament Textual Criticism Facebook page and received a lengthy and
engaging response that required more detail than a comment on Facebook would
allow. I quoted the relevant portions of the question within the body of this
blog post as I attempted to engage them critically. I hope that in my cutting
and pasting I am not misrepresenting in any way.

“If we grant that copyists changed the
texts, on what basis can we say that such changes would be noticed?”

We can say that the changes would
very likely be noticed (eventually) because of what we do know (which is scant
for sure) about ancient publishing practices. As Kim Haines-Eitzen noted in Guardians
of Letters, “Classical and
Christian literature alike appear to have circulated by the agency of social networks”
(p. 78). Asclepiodotus and Theodotus would have received a copy of the
particular New Testament writing that they were “altering” from other
Christians (scribes) who themselves owned copies. This process would have occurred
through a social network. Once a copy was made by either Asclepiodotus or Theodotus
and these copies were then used to teach from and read from in their churches.
The Christian circle from which the exemplar was obtained would still have
contacts with Asclepiodotus and Theodotus’s circle. This interchange between
these Christian groups would allow Christians who moved between them to “hear”
or “read” the differences between the texts of the two communities.

I must confess that I “cherry-picked”
the quote from Eusebius without fully grasping the surrounding context. It
appears that Eusebius was actually quoting from a writer that was roughly contemporaneous
with the events described and that the event in Hist. Eccl. 5.28.13-18 is a lengthy quotation from this writer. In
Hist. Eccl. 5.27 he mentions the works of several theologians and apologists
that were contemporaneous with the events in question and some of them he does
not know the names of. Because Eusebius does not mention the name of the source
he is quoting from, it is very likely that he did not know who actually wrote
it. This in itself brings into question the trustworthiness of the account.
Yet, there seems to be no reason to not take it at face value and trust it as a
real contemporary account, or at the very least reflect circumstances that
would have realistically happened and probably did happen.
Now to answer one of your other questions;

“For
example, in the case of the adoptionists, they changed the texts (I'm not sure
to what degree) and were found out by Eusebius. But perhaps Eusebius only
noticed because they were adamant adoptionists, which automatically raises
suspicions about their texts (assuming they grounded their adoptionism in
scriptural witnesses). In other words, were the changes noticed because texts
were read by many, or were they noticed because of the unique qualifications of
Eusebius?”

As
I noted above, apparently it was not Eusebius who noticed these difference but
a contemporary writer. It is difficult to know if this writer knew of their
adoptionist tendencies and then went looking for other issues or not, it is
impossible to tell from the scarcity of the information. But whether they found
out about the changes first, or they went looking for their scribal alterations
after hearing of their “heresy” makes no difference in my mind. In either way
they would have learned about the changes through the same social networks that
Asclepiodotus
and Theodotus obtained an exemplar of the New Testament book(s) they copied from
and subsequently “altered.”

“If we had a scribe/copyist who felt a passage was
wrong and they correct it, would that be caught by a congregation/theologian?
In the case of the OT readings, there could be a local comparison, but in case
of the NT readings, perhaps there would not be.

Eusebius' recounting of the controversy
points out that Christians in some situations could be adamantly opposed to a
perceived corruption in the text and yet have no recourse to other copies of
the text, pushing them to ask Jewish advice. What would happen if the text was
in the NT?”

(I think you ment the say "Augustine's recounting.") Again,
because early Christian writings were circulated within social constructs, it
is difficult to imagine that there would be no other copies of the New Testament
from which to compare. But I suppose it could be possible.

“So
for example, Eusebius could claim that Jesus said he would be three days in the
earth, not three days and nights. He could claim that there are texts
circulating that are corrupt, and i don't know who could really oppose him on
this, given that he had the means to actually produce these texts. Since the
change in meaning would be negligible for most people, it could be accepted and
even become the dominant reading in the future.”

Eusebius’
work of Church History would itself have been published and circulated within a
community of Christians and non-Christians, as apparently Celsus and Justin
Martyr’s Jewish friend Trypho could obtain copies of the gospels and study
them. These social circles would have copies of their own, again, to compare
and examine Eusebius’ claims. It is hard to imagine the Christians who
requested copies of Eusebius’ Church History in order to make a copy for
themselves did not have access to the Library at Ceaserea. Especially
considering Eusebius’ successor Pamphilus was famous for lending out copies and
even giving away copies of texts to outsiders (see Jerome Apology against
Rufinus 1.9).

“In the example from the blog
the mistake was made because the phrase in question was used liturgically. But
for the majority of the Bible, this does not apply.”

I
can only answer this question by quoting Harry Gamble,

“Although
from time to time the Church appealed to various criteria of canonicity (e.r.
authorship, derivation from the apostolic period, orthodoxy, etc.), the
ultimate criterion for the canonical, authoritative status of a book was its
reception by the Church, and there could be no more certain or compelling
indication of reception by the church than that such a book had over long years
been publicly read in the service of worship” (Literacy, Liturgy, and the Shaping of the New Testament Canon, 37).

4 comments:

Part 2.//It is hard to imagine the Christians who requested copies of Eusebius’ Church History in order to make a copy for themselves did not have access to the Library at Ceaserea.//

I find the opposite to be more intuitive. EH was a work for those who didn't have access to that library. You read EH so you don't have to go there. Likewise, I highly doubt that the library was so open that anybody could get any book at any time. What Eusebius writes takes on credibility because he had access to a great library. It does not follow that others had that access. I would be interested in reading exactly what the access was like at the time.

//Especially considering Eusebius’ successor Pamphilus was famous for lending out copies and even giving away copies of texts to outsiders (see Jerome Apology against Rufinus 1.9).//

Eusebius' predecessor Pamphilius was certainly exceptional, but Jerome doesn't say that he lent the books to "outsiders", but those who were interested in reading. These people aren't spoken of as being from all over, and so we just may have an account of the generosity of Pamphilius to the local Christian population. An encomium is unlikely to be historically accurate, I would say. At any rate, I don't think we have grounds to apply the example of Pamphilius as any sort of norm. He seems to be an exception to the rule.

Again, we don't seem to have an environment where texts are just being given away left and right. In some cases, such as Augustine's story in the 5th century, there were no other texts to compare the reading to, nor Christians knowledgable enough to pass judgement on the reading. They had to defer to the opinions of the Jews, and then they ignored that advice. Hardly an educated critical approach. We would assume that if the filioque had been read in such an environment for decades, and then it was removed, the congregation would be incensed because "it had always been that way" for them. But the filioque was an addition, in spite of their view that it was original. In fact, many in the West did think it to be original. Here the liturgical reading of the text serves to canonize it, but in the wrong form.

Part 3. //the ultimate criterion for the canonical, authoritative status of a book was its reception by the Church, and there could be no more certain or compelling indication of reception by the church than that such a book had over long years been publicly read in the service of worship”//

Except we know this to be false. Eusebius rejected various books, even though he knew they were read liturgically. We also have 2 and 3 John accepted in the canon, but no fathers write of these texts and there is no evidence that they were read liturgically. But we have evidence from the fathers on Barnabas; it was cited as Scripture and thought to be authentic (until Eusebius). Never in the canon, though. We also have to look at the canon as being a 4th c. phenomenon. The evidence points to the fact that 2 & 3 John probably weren't read widely, but Barnabas was. We would expect Barnabas to be canonical and 2 & 3 John to not be, but the opposite is true. So the criterion of liturgical use is simply one of many factors.

//I would say that for the majority of the New Testament, it had been read in the Church in the early periods of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, otherwise they would not have been considered in official lists of canonical books in the later Church councils.//

I would say that the reading of texts in the 2nd and 3rd centuries has little to do with the canon lists of the 4th century. The example of Barnabas and 2 & 3 John applies here as well. Barnabas is clearly a superior text, but it didn't make the lists in the 4th century. It wasn't because of 2nd and 3rd century attitudes and practices, but in opposition to them. Revelation is another example of this: its reception history is not a linear one of marginal to popular, but popular to marginal to popular, and differing in different locations. But the 4th century canon lists were written because of 4th century views, not the views of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

I'll try to deal with some of the content that was supposed to be "part 1" of my series of posts.

//This interchange between these Christian groups would allow Christians who moved between them to “hear” or “read” the differences between the texts of the two communities.//

I agree, but to what extent did this happen? In the example of Theodotus, he was apparently exposed as a corruptor (in the eyes of Eusebius). But we should keep in mind that Eusebius could have been wrong. We simply have to take his word for it.

But if we do grant that his recounting was accurate, and that Theodotus and others had texts that they changed with their own hands and they did not agree amongst each other, then what can we conclude? It wasn't the case that congregations or social networks per se found out the corruptions that were introduced. In fact, it seems like these corruptions took the center stage (since they were theologically significant) and they remained there! The practice was that the text changed and Eusebius says they were caught in the act. But who deemed the variants to be alterations and not originals?

Eusebius did (relying on his ancient source). The charge is made that the texts can be compared and proven to be later corruptions. But is this true? Or is Eusebius bluffing? We should also keep in mind that even though Eusebius claims that such alterations to the text were obvious and were found out, the copyists themselves had no such views. They did so with the understanding that they would not be found out (it appears). And it is debatable as to whether they were correct or not. All we have is later allegations of wrongdoing, and the claim that it can be proven. But could it be proven at the time? Remember that Augustine's story in the 5th century tells us that a congregation that was fanatical about their liturgical traditions didn't even have a second copy of Jonah to compare translations. They had one copy, and they claimed it was corrupt even though the local Jews they asked said it was correct. This doesn't seem like valid text criticism.

So, as I said earlier, the changes would be noticed, but: not as much for non-liturgical readings (meaning readings that are not hymns, for example, not simply read in church services),the changes would not be evaluated correctly in some cases (see Augustine's example).

As with the filioque, we could have people convinced that the omission of the filioque is a corruption of the text, but they would be mistaken. Their time honored tradition of the filioque was simply a mistake hallowed by time. Just as with the Jonah reading, the reaction of the congregation was not based on what was the correct reading, but what reading they were used to. In fact, by all accounts it seems that they were mistaken.

Btw, do you happen to know what the reading from Jonah was? That would be interesting.